What's a Teacher Worth?

I've watched the fight in Wisconsin between the governor and the public employees' unions with fascination and without knowing exactly how I feel about the whole thing. Have unions in some cases protected poor performing teachers to the detriment of students? Certainly. Is Wisconsin going broke because teachers are soaking the system and getting rich in the process. Certainly not. While I've always seen teaching as a calling, a path one chooses for its intrinsic value, I can't help but wonder what education would look like if teachers were paid more. What if our best and brightest could envision a comfortable life as a teacher instead of in law, medicine, or investment banking? Nicholas Kristof's recent New York Times op-ed piece , Pay Teachers More, points out that we pay for what we value in this country, and it's clearly not teachers.